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San Francisco designer Yves Béhar of Fuseproject has created eco-friendly packaging for footwear brand Puma that is half bag and half box.

Called Clever Little Bag, the product consists of a recyclable heat-woven bag and a flat-pack cardboard tray that provides structure.

This new product uses 65% less cardboard than a standard shoe box, has no laminated printing and does not contain tissue paper.

The following information is from Fuseproject:

Bye Bye Shoebox, Hello Clever Little Bag

For the last 21 months we have been thinking about shoeboxes: how to fold them, how to ship them and how to reduce them. In the end, we decided to get rid of them altogether because along the way we discovered a new design solution….a “clever little bag”. Why so clever? By providing structure to a cardboard sheet, the bag uses 65% less cardboard than the standard shoe box, has no laminated printing, no tissue paper, takes up less space and weighs less in shipping, and replaces the plastic retail bag. Now happy Puma customers will take home the clever little one instead. Oh, and that little bag is non-woven which means less work and waste (it is stitched with heat), and after accompanying you in your suitcase wherever you may go, our little friend is even recyclable.

With our "clever little bag", Puma kicks-off the next pivotal phase of its' sustainability program. The tens of millions of shoes shipped in our bag will reduce water, energy and diesel consumption on the manufacturing level alone by more than 60% per year. In other words: approximately 8,500 tons less paper consumed, 20 million Megajoules of electricity saved, 1 million liters less fuel oil used and 1 million liters of water conserved. During transport 500,000 liters of diesel is saved and lastly, by replacing traditional shopping bags the difference in weight will save almost 275 tons of plastic. That such a little bag can have such a big impact...you can see why we called it clever.

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I like the idea, but how much does this actually reduce the waste. Puma provides some nice bold statements in there video. But in the end you are replacing a piece of cardboard with a cloth bag, which still has to be manufactured, printed and disposed of.

I really hope it does reduce waste as its badly needed by many consumer products.

Xit

In effect a clever product, but i'm not a fan of the overbranding, big type 'clever little bag' + recycle/ethics text.

Wadi

This is not reduction of waste, it's branding.
As a Swiss, Behard should know it .
Why not just a simlpe cardboard box with a small print and a handle?

angry catalan

I guess the cloth bag is intended to be reused after purchase but I doubt its of much use given its awkward dimensions and its aggressive branding. However it is true that you need less water for producing a cloth bag than a cardboard box, so there's that. However the textile industry, if it's anything like it was in Catalonia (or Northern England) back in the 80's, is far from clean and green...

I think that the ony way that it is more ecologicaly eficient than a normal shoebox is that you would be much more likely to give it a second use

I like the design... i prefere it with the box inside... :)

angry catalan

@ john: even if it produced the same waste at the factory, at least it does reduce waste at the shop since you need no bag to transport the shoes.

Aidan Nolan

I saw this at the Design Museum, looks nice but it is still essentially a cardboard box. Rather than a lid you now have a cloth bag. It looks like Puma are jumping on the 'going green' band wagon and giving the impression they are doing something to reduce waste. I hope it works for them.

This is now an irrefutable proof of a typical changes in our daily habits. Perhaps it's not perfect yet 100% but at least it's not bad at all!
It's good to encourage this kind of initiatives and keep industrials go further... BRAVO!

I find the idea nice and practical, especially when shoes need to be in a sport bag with other equipment...

doooke

I don't know about you, but I would always keep my Puma boxes to store misc stuff in. The bag is rather practical as well, but I'm gonna miss the free storage container.

Pony the Trap

Tie the shoelaces together, hang the shoes around your neck.
No bag. No Box.

mcmlxix

The bag is disposable only if you don't want it. Otherwise it's reusable and free advertizing.

JeffK

Um, I'm slightly confused by the various comments saying this is not reducing waste, its just branding etc. Um, it cleary is...by 65%. And it reduces space and weight in shipping, and you don't need a carry bag. You multiply that by the millions of shoes Puma sells, and it is better. End of story.
Small changes in very large quantity goods is exactly where design can massively benefit the environment.

The only downer is the name: 'clever little shoe bag'= smug

Darren

I have been wondering for quite long, about when this kind of design will come out.

Finally, Puma made the move.

This is seriously green, as long as the material of the box and bad are recyclable.

If you realize, everytime we buy a pair of shoes, we ask for a plastic bag. This design actually save us from using lots of plastic bags! Brilliant!

It shouldn't be dominated by Puma, and become an exclusive item to boot their sales.

Every brand, should look into similar approach to achieve greener solutions.

mil

A shoe box is very usefull, more than a bag!

Capstick

Bravo!

marl karx

Pony the Trap said:

April 14th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Tie the shoelaces together, hang the shoes around your neck.
No bag. No Box.

I absolutely agree. One day we will realise that this is all we need to do. Heres a thought....why not just the bag?! sure during transport they will get squashed a little but once worn for a day they are back to normal.
numerous stores already sell shoes right off the hanger. no box at all. why can't we decide to do this?

Ulla

"A shoe box is very usefull, more than a bag!"

I agree completely. I only need one or maximum two shoebags for training or travelling - which I already have. The boxes I reuse, as containers for all kinds of stuff - and shoes.
The Puma box-bag uses cardboard anyway, but in this case the cardboard is totally unuseful after purchase - I dont get it. Why not just make a box, or just a bag.

Mark

Looks nice - but a classic shoe carton is usually made from simple and cheap card instead of corrugated cardboard using probably even less raw material. All kinds of paper are generally perfectly to recycle and mainly made from recycled paper. These non woven bags are 100% plastic and use far more oil then most plastic bags. If you want to protect the environment use a classic simple shoe cartons and ask customers to bring their own backpack. Probably still the best choice. Well no Puma branding then.

Nedelcu Tudor

@Mark:from the viewpoint of marketing the ideea of asking the customer to bring his own backpack is imposible.It ruins tha ideea of a brand..it makes it looks cheep.

Ian Campbell Cole

As a footwear designer/product manager, i have had this emailed to me from all angles (product and non product people) with questions like how do we respond to this, look how good it is etc etc... And in principle i agree, a nice project and doing a great job of raising Puma's profile in the world of CR.

However, considering the function of the shoe box during the various stages of supply chain from factory to shop floor, not to mention the different requirements that different markets have from packaging...I can't help thinking this is going to be a great piece of PR for Puma, but in reality be a difficult one to roll out.

When challenging a standard approach, you challenge others to change there behaviours too. But try keeping a factory storage area/container/distibution centre/truck/stock room etc working efficiently with packaging that looks like a nightmare to keep neatly stacked...?! Not to mention keep the product looking good.

I would hope that Yves and team have lived and breathed every step of a shoe boxes life, and that the Clever Little Bag has been designed accordingly. In which case a im sure it will be a success and back up the hype!

Its about time.You can never have enough shoe bags to put your cycle shoes and rainy shoes in.The shoe bag is multipurpose and the cardboard structure is recyclable.
Comment about 'factory to stock room',perhaps consider changes to logistics and operations if the company actually believes in this new packaging .If the company believes in it, it can over come such an issue.
Great for the environment - roll it out across the footwear industry!

Kjb

t’s just gimmicky not really ECO FRIENDLY!THEY DID NOT MENTION HOW MUCH YARD OF NON-WOVEN FABRIC USING ON BAG AND HOW MUCH WATER AND ENERGY USE WHEN PRODUCTION THE BAG WITH ALL IMPLEMENTS IN ORDER TO DISPLAY THE BAG.